Shooting Charlotte's classic tale proved anything but pastoral

December 16, 2006|By Lisa Rosen, Special to the Los Angeles Times

MELBOURNE, Australia — The story is deceptively simple. A runty piglet, a stubborn little girl, some barn animals and a brilliant spider literally spell out a lesson in love and sacrifice. Yet heaven and earth and a million leaves would be moved in the process of turning E.B. White's beloved "Charlotte's Web" into a live-action movie.

It may not be the biggest film that Jordan Kerner has produced (the long list includes "Fried Green Tomatoes" and "George of the Jungle"). "But it's certainly one of the most complicated," he said, sitting in a tricked-out trailer. "We involved every no-no in the movie business," Kerner said. "We're working with children, live animals, animatronic animals and visual effects -- ooh, and I forgot, movie stars."

Indeed, compared with some of the animals (the pig count alone hit 70), the movie's actors were a breeze. And speaking of breezes, well, they made quite an appearance as well -- but we'll get to that.

In this big movie about a little pig, which opened Friday, Julia Roberts provides the voice of Charlotte, the spider. Oprah Winfrey, Robert Redford, John Cleese, Thomas Haden Church, Reba McEntire, Kathy Bates, Steve Buscemi, Cedric the Entertainer and Andre Benjamin (a.k.a. Andre 3000) lend their voices to other characters in the movie. The book had previously been filmed as an animated feature in 1973.

But the actors were all in the U.S. During preproduction in Australia, Kerner and director Gary Winick ("13 Going on 30") headed back for a whirlwind bout of dialogue taping, with only a rough animated storyboard to show the actors. "It was literally eight days of not knowing where we were or what we were doing," Kerner said. "Flying into Los Angeles to record Kathy and Reba together, flying to Chicago to get Oprah, to New Mexico to get Julia; John Cleese, Cedric and Dominic Scott Kay [as Wilbur] back in Los Angeles, Andre 3000 in Toronto, Thomas Haden Church in San Antonio." And that was just the first round -- the filmmakers would have to return for more taping once the scenes were shot.

With all that stateside activity, why film halfway around the world? Money was one main reason; the other was the weather. The film required an autumn backdrop, and when it was finally greenlighted by Paramount (the movie is a co-production with Walden Media and Nickelodeon), it was too late to start filming anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere. So they scouted outside Melbourne, because the state film agency assured them a temperate climate.

`We were yokels'

Once they set up shop, however, "we were told by everybody in town, `Oh, yeah, you get all four seasons -- in one day,'" Kerner said. "We were yokels."

Not even the townies could have predicted what came next: the worst weather in more than 150 years. Winds of 80 to 100 m.p.h. ravaged the area, along with the 15 inches of rain that dropped one day, according to Kerner. The picturesque little stream running through the film's farm set turned into a raging river, washing out a small bridge to the location. Shooting shut down for four days.

The production design had setbacks as well. The foliage on dozens of deciduous trees, planted for the film, changed color much earlier than expected. So the crew had to strip every tree of every leaf, buy hundreds of thousands of green silk leaves and tie them on one by one. When filming began for fall scenes, they would have to strip those leaves and replace them with autumn versions.

On a trip out to the set in April of last year, the faux leaves fluttered realistically and the stream was back to a benign trickle. Unfortunately, a cold snap the previous week had frozen acres of corn planted for the film, so the stalks had to be cut down. (Computer-generated images of a neighbor's cornfield would later be inserted into the scenery.) The barn looked so authentic that field mice made homes there, in turn attracting snakes. A snake wrangler was on staff to clear out the place every morning before filming.

In one shot, Wilbur needs to walk to the barn's entrance and look up. Take after take, head animal trainer Larry Madrid would say, "mark" and "target," and the pig more or less trotted up to his spot.

"Usually you say, `Let's do another take,'" Winick said. "With animals, it's `Let's do another mag,' and each mag is 10 minutes. So if this is going to be a three-mag take, it will take up to 30 minutes." Winick said the effort could get frustrating, "but it's kind of a comfort coming to set every day and knowing that you're not going to feel the pressure of working with the actor and having to deal with all of the complexities that brings. Of course, right now all I want to do is work with actors again," he said, laughing.

He had his reasons. The geese hated the other animals, so their every scene had to be filmed separately. The cows got so excited in anticipation of food rewards that they would start drooling during their scenes. "So we've got CG drool removal," Kerner said dryly.